Don't Draw A Line
by triumphant return
Summary: Or so John tells himself. But it's not easy when Sherlock is relapsing into schizophrenia and perilous few believe him when he claims that Moriarty's shade is still at work. Alt post-pool timeline. Slash J/S. M for sex 'n drugs. Complete
1. Chapter 1

"You were about to say it, weren't you?" John's voice was cold and sad. It made DI Lestrade cringe.

"Say what?"

John snorted, reminding Lestrade of a bull not for the first time. "Don't play the fool with me, Lestrade. As if I don't know what the whole Yard thinks about Sherlock and me."

"No—"

"Christ!" John shook his head, falling further and further into disbelief. "For starters you think I sound as paranoid as he does."

Lestrade dropped his gaze, cleared his throat with a cough. The shame of the Yard— Anderson, Donovan, the merest copy girl who had ever pitied John as the man fate had so royally fucked a hundred times over— twisted poisonously inside of him. He didn't try to protest again; any "No, no, never on your life" would come out weak and insincere. John didn't deserve that. Lestrade found enough self-respect there to grit his teeth and meet John's accusing eyes once more.

John pressed his lips together and nodded. "The Holmes family has a history of schizophrenia." He paused and then determined, "But you already knew that." His brow furrowed, demanding an explanation.

Lestrade nodded slowly, "We've known for some time." He spoke softly and slowly, pausing long between his words. He was treading on a minefield of combustible emotion. There was no enemy here besides the disease; neither John nor Lestrade could say where the bombs lay lethal underfoot. If only the war could be fought with evidence and investigation instead of patience and pricey medication. If only there were a perpetrator to lock up.

"What— What do you mean? How long is 'some time,' exactly?"

Lestrade took a blind step forward. "John, Sally has been trying to convince you that he was mental since the beginning. You would never have listened to us."

"I still don't." He stared at Lestrade, daring a challenge. "He's not just a nutter."

"John—"

"Look." John leaned forward over the desk, rapping it with his knuckles for emphasis. "I know that with his family history and his past and everything it's a poor prognosis. _I know_. He may never be the Sherlock I first met again. But he's still Sherlock."

Lestrade let out a constrained breath. He tried again. "John, I—"

"Please, Lestrade. Please, what harm could it do?"

Lestrade did not like to see strong men plead. He believed himself to be a moral man with moral convictions, one of which being that good people should never need to beg. Such convictions had compelled him to join the force long ago.

"Fine. As you said, what harm could it do?"

"Thank you," John said quietly. "This means a lot to us."

Lestrade nodded. "Yeah," he said, with the same quietness. "Yeah."

* * *

><p>"If there were a fire?— But why would there be a fire? Arson, matches, electric, iron, cigarette, toasting marshmallows—"<p>

"Sherlock! I'm home!" John closed the door with his hip as his hands were laden with curry take-away and the shopping. "Anyone in?"

Mrs. Hudson emerged from the back. "That smells lovely," she said by way of greeting. "Is that from the new place just opened?"

"Yeah, thought I'd give it a go. How is he?" He put down his bags to shed his coats.

"Oh, the same. A lot of muttering, a shout every now and then, so I suppose he's quite himself, actually. Gives me a start all the same. Not an hour ago, I was about to put—"

An explosion ripped through the air. "Oh my God!" shrieked Mrs. Hudson, hand flying to her heart.

John sprinted up the stairs, visions of a blood-streaked corpse with Sherlock's features lying sprawled on the carpet flashing through his head. "Sherlock!" he roared, shoving the door open.

Sherlock was standing on the coffee table. He grinned at John proudly, twirling a certain standard army issue handgun in and out of his grasp like a Wild West cowboy. "Gunshot, John! Also highly flammable!" Then he thrust the gun up to the ceiling and pulled the trigger again.

Mrs. Hudson screamed. "I'm calling the police!"

"It's alright, Mrs. Hudson! We're alright!" John shouted down.

Sherlock was regarding the bullet holes above him critically. "Only in certain cases, obviously," he appended to his earlier proclamation. "Phosphorous bullets," he murmured, tapping the muzzle thoughtfully against his thigh regardless of the metal's fresh heat.

The unnatural extreme angle of Sherlock's bent neck disturbed John. He held out his hand. "Can I have it back now?"

"Yes." Sherlock swept down from the coffee table, tossing the firearm to John. His untied robe fluttered around his bare white chest and billowed behind him magisterially. "Don't let the curry sit too long. You'll regret it if you have to reheat the rice."

"Do you plan on playing with weaponry again soon?"

Sherlock snorted. "Mycroft ordered a bazooka yesterday, didn't he?'

John blinked. "Umm, did he?"

Sherlock was kneeling in front of the household paraphernalia jumbled in a pile under the sink. He glanced at each label for warnings of combustibility before tossing them over his shoulder. He took a break to poke his head up and scowl at John over the table. "Oh, come on, is it that hard? For the near future, the answer is no, I won't. The _very_ near future." He snapped his fingers at Jon thrice in quick succession. "Make the _connections_, John! Even the stranger looking at you from across the road has meaning, if only you kick the neurons into action!"

He ducked back down and continued his pillaging.

Mrs. Hudson met John on the landing with the takeaway. "Ah, cheers, Mrs. Hudson," he began. "I really can't apologize enough, I—"

"It's alright, John, it's alright; you boys aren't evicted yet. I'm worried out of my mind, but not only for this old house." She regarded him pointedly, her comfort edged with soft reprimand. "We all need to take care of ourselves. Especially you, Doctor."

"Of course, of course," he said. "I could've sworn I left with the key to the safe this morning; he must have pick-pocketed me. I'll get someone round tomorrow to look at the pipes and everything." He started backing away.

She took pity on him and moved in to rub his arm with sad affection. "Oh, love, it's never simple with Sherlock, is it? You do your best now, and remember I'm always just downstairs if ever you need to chat. My cousin Letty went through something similar a few years ago; she always said a listening ear did a world of good." She smiled encouragingly.

John smiled back, thanked her and wished her a good night, shutting the door with a final "Sorry!" Then he thunked his forehead against the door's cool wood and clenched his teeth. Damn all those helpful people. Damn them to hell. John was sick of consolations, prying queries, suggestions and sick beyond sick of platitudes. No, patience was not one of his virtues; no, he was not a saint; no, his stiff upper lip was too sore to sport today. And maybe tomorrow was another day, but that didn't mean it was a better one. Fuck all the nice people. Fuck all of their useless, pathetic, interminable _niceness_.

In the end, the man he loved was sick and only getting sicker.


	2. Chapter 2

The curry was tepid by the time John maneuvered Sherlock to the table. "How is our friend Lestrade?" Sherlock asked, spearing a hunk of chicken on his fork. "I perceive from the watch in your pocket that he was most anxious to meet with you."

John grinned, delighted. Classic Sherlock. "Now how did you get all that then?" he asked with exaggerated wide-eyed wonder.

"Where else does one remove his beloved birthday Rolex—"

John lifted his glass in acknowledgement. "Thanks again."

"The pleasure is all mine, John— But at a metal detector. You weren't out long enough to go to Heathrow, so the Yard it is. And your right hand was so occupied shaking Lestrade's that you neglected to replace the watch around your wrist."

John laughed. His heart lifted free in his chest. Wouldn't everything be alright? This Sherlock right here was the only one there ever had been or ever would be: the one sitting just across from him, ignoring everything except the updates on his Crackberry. Sherlock's essential genius was volatile, maniacal—always had been. Nothing had changed really.

Sherlock smiled too, so minutely that it almost seemed private. He put his phone aside and pulled his robe a little tighter about his chest like a preening bird. While pale and thin, his perfect posture cut off any impression of sickly weakness. "So," he began, rolling back his shoulders. "What did our little friends with the little brains have to say?"

"They said— or rather, Lestrade said— that you are more than welcome to official channels on this one." John barely stumbled over the caveat, but Sherlock snatched it wriggling out of the sea of good cheer.

He looked up to the heavens. "On this one…" he sighed. "Well, that saves some trifling bother hacking," he pronounced dismissively.

"Good news, I say."

"Hm." Sherlock dropped his fork and knife on the plate still heaped with food. He pushed himself from the table and flopped bodily on the couch. "That curry is appalling."

"Absolutely dreadful."

"Hm." He steepled his hands under his chin, assuming the position, as John liked to call Sherlock's descent into meditation. His eyes snapped shut; John thought that was that, but they sprang open a bare second later. "Did you actually go the _whole day_ with that spot of jam on your jumper?"

John pulled out the hem and looked down. "Yeah."

Sherlock's eyes shuttered closed again. "Yarders must think we've had a domestic," he grumbled without a word more for the following ten hours.

* * *

><p>When Sergeant Sally Donavon had been told— no, ordered, threatened and cajoled— to meet the Freak at a scene sucked dry of information so early that the sun barely dared show its face, she threw a fit. Her mood had only soured since.<p>

"Bodies have burned here, going by the smell."

"And 'Good Morning' to you, too." Donavon answered. "It smells foul, that's what it smells like."

Then she launched into a description of the case. The better to get it over with. "At 4:02 someone phones in reporting smoke and a disgusting smell coming from that giant bin over there—"

Sherlock's mind shot forward like a sprinter at the starter's pistol. 4:02, no news of any incidents within an hour except petty theft. Probably unrelated.

"… the victims, still unidentified, include a male and female both in their forties and two female children no older than twelve. All white, all—"

A family then, thoroughly disposed of. Not a passion killing. At least not directly. An assassin? Sherlock strode toward the bin. Donavon faded away mid-sentence once she realized he had long since ceased to hear her. After watching Sherlock's performance of wriggling under the gap below the bin for a few seconds, she glanced at her watch. Only 6:30. Despite her seething fury and an extra-large cup of black coffee, she still couldn't keep her eyes open. She slumped against the squad car's bonnet. The view of the charred rubbish bin blurred like a watercolor as her eyelids drooped lower and lower.

"Donavon!" Sherlock roared.

She gasped, startled awake. Her coffee tumbled from her loose grip, drenching her suede boots in a black deluge. "Fucking, fucking, fucking hell!" she shrieked. She gave a savage kick to the car's bumper. Those were her bonus money shoes, and they were utterly ruined. Donavon howled her rage to the skies.

Sherlock meanwhile had hopped inside the bin. He rolled his eyes at the spectacle and tried again. "Donavonnn…" he sang. "I'm sure temper tantrums give Anderson great hard-ons judging by the magnitude of that hickie you're failing to conceal under that… maroon, is it? 'maroon' turtleneck, but if you would be _so_ kind as to desist and—"

"You!" Donavon interrupted in a malevolent hiss. "You have no right, do you hear me? You have no _right_. You're a sick, bloody-minded arsehole and a madman, Sherlock Holmes."

Then she was gone, slamming the door behind her and taking off with tyres squealing.

Well then.

He went back to work, ducking down into the bin again. Then he paused. The sense of being watched grated like cold metal on his spine. Sherlock took a deep breath to disperse the nervous energy flaring inside of him, rioting against his iron will, trying to force him to look at the twenty-three year-old Pakastani waiter who was observing him intently from the upper right-hand window across the road. He asked himself what was more logical, that he was under surveillance for evil purposes or because he was a man vigorously inspecting an empty bin.

Or an almost empty bin. The bumbling Yarders had disposed of most of the contents, but that was only to present him with a challenge. Sherlock crouched down to sift through the ash littering the metal bottom in the feathery mounds of a macabre dystopian snowfield.

He froze again, forgetting all about his audience and the bits of burnt refuse and body running between his fingers. A siren blared on some faraway street. It wailed on and on in his ears, calling him to the scene of his next case, tugging insistently at his very cells. He recognized with absolute certainty the intersection of the squad car's destiny and his own. Sherlock knew it through the veins of the city, the throbbing conduits that connected him to the city and the city to him.

He knew it like he knew the criminal mastermind at work behind this immolation. Sherlock's eyes narrowed at the soot streaking his palms. "Moriarty," he whispered triumphantly.

* * *

><p>AN: Making up for relative brevity with regular updates. Look for me on Monday nights. I'll keep this up despite my disgusting track record of multichap shitshows and my crisis of fandom faith. New Year's Resolution.


	3. Chapter 3

"I have a— well, a sensitive matter to bring up. I wouldn't dare ask it normally, of course, if it weren't so troublesome." The woman was short and dumpy, with brown hair and a face like melted wax. John resented her presence at the support group. She would keep insisting on bringing in stale biscuits. It was a pathetic façade, and it made John feel pathetic by association.

"It's fine, Jean. We're all here to share." The group leader, a sharp woman in her sixties, looked over the rim of her black glasses at the hesitating woman. Her manner didn't so much comfort as it did remind you of your duty to keep plugging away at life. John liked it; she brought out a side of him that had been buried away since his days in the army.

Jean smiled with shaky lips. "Well, in that case… I was wondering how you react when your… significant other," she said with a great show of tact, glancing in John's direction. He could have punched her, but he made do with clearing his throat and re-adjusting his seat. "Well, when your significant other wants to go to bed with you. Wants to… make love. I just don't know if it's right… it's a proper mess" she finished. Her chalky cheeks flared red, and she could only raise the courage to peek squirrel-like at the rest of the group, a hodge-podge collection of young and old Central Londoners with only a common enemy to keep them together.

After a second or two of polite reflection, a young man spoke up. "Sometimes I sleep on the couch for that very reason," he admitted with a rueful grin.

Another man from across the circle laughed. "So do I," he said. "Or stay up working til she falls asleep on her own."

"I can't say no to my husband," said a bold American woman. Her story was widely respected as the most traumatic, although no one quite knew the details. She was nevertheless held up as a model of bravery and resolute action so often that the others were almost jealous of her struggles. "I missed him so much during his relapse. All the little things you just take for granted, you know. So now I just think, you never know, right? Maybe he's not at a hundred percent, but who am I to be picky? I still love him, and I want him to know that."

There were some murmurs of assent from the quieter members. The men who had spoken earlier looked a little sheepish.

The group leader stepped in. "This is not an easy subject. There are obviously a variety of opinions; and of course, each case is unique. Schizophrenia has been known to distort the victim's sexuality somewhat. If you feel uncomfortable because your partner is not acting as you feel they would normally, there are always Stephen and Alistair's methods to fall back on. I can only tell you to do what you think is best for you and your partner."

"I'll still love my husband," said the American woman firmly. "So long as he's still in there, I'll love him."

The meeting broke up an hour later with the Thought of the Month: "There is enough love to go around for the whole world."

* * *

><p>"So any clues?"<p>

Sherlock made a pitying face. "Please. Fuck clues. It was one of Moriarty's agents. Unmistakable signs. Too organized, too…" he hissed his breath in and shivered with happiness, "perfect!"

John went on alert. "Moriarty?" he asked guardedly. "I thought we locked all his men up."

"He may as well have signed his name!"

"It's just that last time…"

Sherlock spun on John, eyes flashing. "How anyone could fall for such a transparent ploy is beyond me. David Ganse is no less than one of Moriarty's pawns! The note, the missing glove, _everything_ leads to him and no one else! Did you see his bail was posted yesterday? Lestrade ballsed that one right up. Imagine how big this is, John! Two cases in a row!"

John grabbed a paper and sat down in his chair. He knew where this rant was going. Forty minutes in, and Sherlock had settled down in front of the computer but was still soliloquizing on Moriarty. It was as if John's vision were swimming. Whenever he glanced up from a sentence he had read and forgotten a hundred times, he watched with dread as a torrent of words raged unchecked from the lips of Sherlock's dark reflection. Then John would catch himself and realign his double vision to glue the real and unreal back together again. But it didn't feel right. There were ragged edges and overlap, words or postures belonging to one Sherlock and not the other, the imposter. It shamed John to draw that outline and see what should be trimmed.

He couldn't stand it any longer. "Sherlock… Sherlock!"

"Yes?" He answered in a tone weighted with suffering for acknowledging the interruption. "What is it?"

"You remember I'm staying over at Harry's for the weekend."

"Oh, right. Why again? No, don't tell me," he cut in over the reply. "I don't care."

John rolled his eyes. Sherlock was always petulant when an untimely— and it was always untimely— reminder of his husband's life outside of 221 B loomed over their little world. "Mycroft promised he'd get a doctor, someone trustworthy, to come round and give you your shot. Don't want another February." He said delicately. The atmosphere became crystalline, and every word lingered, wavering as if tapped out by a knife on a wineglass.

"Quite."

"Will you be alright? I can stay, if you want."

"Do stop nagging. Of course I'll be alright."

"It's just," John explained, leaning his elbows on his knees, "I'm supposed to love the whole world, and I only love you."

Sherlock's fingers froze over the keyboard. He looked up and turned to face John. There was a light in his eyes, a golden glow from the sun deep within him. John had never seen it very often and not at all of late. It reminded him of silly things that made him feel at home— butter melting into liquid light on a steaming muffin, the itch peculiar to his favorite jumper, waking up to the familiar scent of formaldehyde and tea hopefully not sharing the same cup. A presumptuous colleague at the office had once asked him how he managed to get on with such a bizarre younger man. He hadn't quite known how to respond then, but ever since he had been coming up with better and better answers. This one, the secret, all-important look from Sherlock to John, was the best yet.

Of the genus lovemaking there were two species: sex for John and sex for Sherlock. John didn't know which one this night counted towards. Perhaps a new species, a crossbreed?

It had both the gentle nips of sex for Sherlock and the treasuring touches of sex for John. Their legs slid somewhere they couldn't keep track of. Sherlock wrapped himself like a ribbon around John, inside and out, going around and around. John's hands found his every corner and crevice, stroking him to flame.

Even afterwards, he couldn't take his eyes off Sherlock. He'd fought so hard for him during that cold, black month when Sherlock had refused to budge from the couch, leveling incoherent accusations of betrayal against anyone that crossed his mind— even John, sometimes. John had fought so very hard.

"Know what?" he asked.

"Probably," said a contented Sherlock from where he lay on top of John. His body put pressure in all the right places, because there were no wrong places.

John laughed. "No, seriously; know what I love?"

Sherlock had almost fallen asleep listening to John's heartbeat, but he perked up to bring his head around to a bare centimeter above his face. John could feel the breeze off of Sherlock's lashes when he blinked, could smell his particular scent like faded amber-spiced cologne on his moist breath. That was John's breath, he'd put it there in Sherlock's mouth; now he took that life-giving force back into his body.

With his dark curls falling over his forehead and an impudent grin, Sherlock guessed, "Me?"

"No, I _hate_ you."

"I hate you, too, John."


	4. Chapter 4

"So it was Moriarty's man after all?"

"David Ganse, according to the identification based on Mycroft Holmes' surveillance tapes." Lestrade paused to assess John's reaction, but he might as well have been looking at a slab of granite. He pressed on regardless. "And I'm sorry, John, but he's long gone by now."

"He'll be back."

Lestrade frowned. "Did Sherlock say something…?"

"No," John forced between his teeth, clipping every word tight. "He hasn't said anything."

Lestrade felt the sting behind his words and then let it go. John had every right. Another wave of blame crashed overhead, but he pressed on through it as well. "'Course. Sorry. But why do you say that?"

"He's been cleaning up Moriarty's loose ends. The murder of that family. Revenge against his killer. He'll be back." When John's vision refocused from the vague middle distance to Lestrade's puzzled face, he realized that an explanation would be appreciated. So he sat silently. Nothing was easy or free anymore; let Lestrade work it out for himself.

Déjà-vu overcame the DI. It was as if Sherlock had possessed his husband's body. "You looked at his notes?" he hazarded.

John smirked. "Sherlock doesn't keep notes."

"So…?" Or perhaps it was the other husband who was doing the possessing. John looked awful. His eyes were red with exhaustion, and he drooped in his seat like a punctured balloon. Again, Lestrade couldn't blame him for clinging to Sherlock any way he could. Even if it did give him the heebie-jeebies.

John stood, suddenly wishing with all his heart just to be safe at home instead of a tired police office where everything glittered cold and bitter under the wan fluorescent. It was all useless, pathetic and interminable. "Look, I'd better be getting back…"

"Sure, sure." Lestrade nodded. He wavered for a second before launching himself from his chair to the doorway, catching John's arm. The other man blinked and registered Lestrade's hand with a reaction dulled by the desolation of grief.

Lestrade didn't know what he wanted to say, not even as the words crashed recklessly from his lips. "Look, John," he began. "I really can't begin to say how sorry I am. I feel responsible. I should have put a guard on that doctor of Mycroft's; I had no idea he would be a target. I should have— I don't know— put a guard on Sherlock!" He gestured wide into the empty air, trying to prove his honesty.

John watched him like a plaintiff watches a defendant's confession. Or like how a judge watches. He wanted this apology; he deserved this apology. He deserved it from the whole world. But it didn't satisfy him; Lestrade's words passed right through him, leaving his bloodlust unavenged and his loneliness unfulfilled.

"I found Sherlock, the only man I have ever loved, _my husband_, writhing on the floor. He was completely lost in a delirium that he has now become catatonia. He can't speak, he can't eat, and he doesn't recognize anyone. All because David fucking Ganse gave him the wrong antipsychotic." John's eyes narrowed and his voice bit poisonously. "Yeah, I think you really ought to have put a guard on him," he spat.

Lestrade's hand went to his face. He breathed deep, drawing his far-flung emotions back inside his gutted body. "I'll double the men at the hospital," he whispered. He would never say sorry again. 'Sorry' was paper-thin— easily torn, crumpled and tossed.

John surveyed his work in Lestrade's expression. The judge had issued the sentence, and he didn't regret a word. Besides, the heat of the moment was too warm, too precious, too much like life to dowse. "He was never paranoid until everyone started doubting him," John said, before he strode from the office.

One day he would forgive the guilty, forgive everyone— just after he forgave himself. But that day was long off into the future.

Lestrade still couldn't blame him.

* * *

><p>The politician's well-dressed brother spent most of the day underneath tables. Or desks. He didn't find any answers beneath either. On the contrary, life appealed even less when gazing at the rough bottom of the coffee table. The new perspective depressed him, pressing hard on his lead heart. Life marched on around him—he was sure— at regular clock tick intervals. Bovine men and women parted on either side of him, boorishly going about their lives, mooing at each other. He wouldn't disturb their migration any more than a stone would a stream's. Why would he? The idiots.<p>

Yes he would.

He left the shelter of the coffee table. He felt naked, exposed like a rabbit in a field. Some hawk's chicks were hungry for meat. The burn of the predator's laser eyes lashed his skin, and he yelped, scuttling for the kitchen table's cover. He sprawled underneath it and heaved hysterical sobs to catch his breath. The frustrated cry of certain death circling overhead rang in his ears. He hissed in pain, slapping his palms over them and snarling at the wide unknown with teeth bared. Then he had an idea.

His fingers dug at the peanut butter-disguised hole he had bored in the wood. A few tabs of acid dropped into his palm. He breathed a sigh of relief after they had dissolved on his tongue. Finally he could float free again.

It was so easy! His long limbs cleaved the carpet's waves gracefully as he swam across. "You," he mouthed in bubbles to the hippopotamus hiding between the emerald reeds striping the depths of the brackish water, "are the dullest creature on Earth."

The animal's piggy, recalcitrant eyes stared back from the dark spaces among the shafts of swampy green light. The man curled up in a ball and squeezed his eyes shut. A plank-like snout shoved under him and— fwoosh! The hippopotamus tossed him into the air.

Flicked like a spot of dirt, he shot free of the Nile, the pyramids, the dusty deserts of the dead, all the way to the sea. He grew wings, lost them, grabbed a pillow off the couch instead. He lived a lifetime falling like Icarus for his pride.

He broke his back on the Emporer of China's pleasure barge. The cedar planks smelled sweet underneath his trembling body, tingling his nerves with warmth from the sun's glow. Cooing courtesans and catamites in peacock silks rustled near. One delicately stroked the sweat from his curls. Another folded in the long angles of his skewed limbs with light touches. Their porcelain fingertips made him shudder when they rubbed hot wine into his veins.

Heavy footfalls— the Emperor tucked him into the soft sheets of his bed. The rough touch of the Emperor's hands felt familiar. He reached out to the warmth and didn't let go. The Emperor leant over, and his well-known lips moved. Slippery sounds and secret syllables slid out on the wind. He strained and grasped at them, but they were too fast for him. He could have cried; they were so essential.

A songbird sings similar important messages. A titmouse dips and speeds overhead in the garden, chased by a roc. The man goes rigid with fear. He remembers the laser scars, the rabbit skinned. The roc smells his terror and seizes him in the iron bands of his claws.

"All hawks are mad," Father had murmured to the hooded bird. His son was young and mad too— find a sane man, someone once said, and you've found a corpse.

"They have some noble blood in them. Just like us." Father only speaks in short declaratives. "So many similarities… " He glanced down at his son and jumped his eyebrows up, scaring a reaction.

"Well, we are both predators, Father."

Father removes the hood from the bird. His small, clenched smile is meant for his son. Then he throws the bird into the sky, where it flies fast and far away. He looks at his son and points out over the moors with his extended arm in the direction of the hawk. "So you say. Go now."

"I do say so, Father. Goodbye."

Both twitched their heels on their horse's flanks. Neither would return.

The son's mind exploded like a supernova, racing across the mossy green expanse. He floated free, a buoy on the sea of the universe. Every beat of the canter nudged him against the pommel. His pulse deepened at that central point, and he got hard. The last thing Sherlock's father heard from his son was a wild war whoop of utter exhilaration as he urged his horse to a gallop.

He groans into his pillow. _Not_ his preferred 600 thread count Egyptian cotton, but all the same the tension detaches from his inner belly and comes spiraling out with his breath. His slack muscles can barely support him as he flips himself onto his back. There's a damp spot somewhere beneath his spine.

"John, I think I'm alright," he says to the Emperor.

Fin


End file.
